Uncaring healthcare

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Americans complain about healthcare and its cost. Brits, on the other hand, myself included, are proud of the “free” National Health Service. Or, to be exact, what used to be the National Health Service before the “Conservative” government started privatizing it by stealth and making it a profit center. Now read on………

To The Guardian
I have just seen an official circular from a large group medical practice in Manchester, announcing that, because of winter pressures, the Covid pandemic and the designation of Manchester as a high-risk zone, they will now be dealing only with “urgent” cases, nothing of a “routine” nature. If we have Covid symptoms we are instructed to get a test, but the surgery is unable to arrange it; “minor ailments” are to be taken to a pharmacist, or “please implement self-care where appropriate”.

What is not made clear is how a patient is to know if a symptom is “minor” (what if a tickly cough, for example, is lung cancer?), or how a patient is to know when self-care is “appropriate”.

There you have it: non-healthcare made official and explicit. The virus is proving to be breathtaking in more ways than one. Can we have our money back?
(Philip Barber, consultant respiratory physician, Manchester)

Lockdown pollution

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During lockdown, road traffic fell dramatically all over the world. In Scotland, it was down 65%.

And yet all those cars being off the road didn’t make much difference to levels of air pollution. A team at the University of Stirling analysed levels of PM2.5 fine particulate matter recorded at 70 roadside locations around Scotland from 24 March – the day after lockdown was introduced – to 23 April. They then compared the data to the same periods in previous years, and found no significant difference. However, they did detect a fall in levels of nitrogen dioxide. Based on these findings, the researchers say that cars may not be key contributors to outdoor pollution in Scotland, and that people there may be at greater risk from air pollution in their own homes, especially if smoking or cooking is taking place in poorly ventilated spaces.
(The Week 19 September 2020).

My take: My personal betes noirs are the people who sit in their parked cars on our block with their car engines running, sometimes for half an hour or more. And it isn’t even cold. Meanwhile, they are concentrating on their cellphones or i-pads. I cannot imagine myself fouling the air of nearby householders, but apparently this point has not occurred to some out-of-towners who come into the city to work or to shop, without a thought for the rest of us. The idea of consideration for others was drummed into me as a child relentlessly. This modern selfishness, masquerading as “liberty”, is anti-social and obnoxious. And unepicurean.

Pension problem in UK

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By 2028, British people won’t be able to claim their state pension until they’re 67.

According to a new study, however, there is a potential problem: although we are living longer, we may not be healthy enough to work for longer. Researchers at Keele University and Newcastle University used data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing to calculate how long the typical 50-year-old in England can expect to remain healthy and in work. They found that the “healthy working life expectancy” of this age group is about nine years – which means many people may not be healthy enough to work to the current pension age, let alone future ones. Predictably, healthy working life expectancy was higher for people in non-manual jobs than in manual ones. It also increased alongside education level. “Our results suggest that many people will find it challenging to work for longer,” said lead author Marty Parker. (The Week, 11 July 2020 and The Guardian)

My comment:  Connect the dots.  The government has spent years privatizing and reorganising the National Health Service, until now it is barely able to cope with Covid 19.  The NHS used to be the crown jewel of the British government. A successful project run by government is, however, considered unacceptable by hard-line Tories, who require everything to make a profit and be run by political friends.  Sound familiar?  As the Johnson government is just finding out, the idea of “making Britain great again” is a pipe-dream.

“The Rueful Hippopotamus” (to lighten the gloom)

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Research now seems to indicate
That hippos can communicate,
Like dolphins or the great blue whale,
With clicks. And thereby hangs a tale,
For they can hear beneath the water
Things on land they didn’t oughta,
And from the bank can hear what’s said
By colleagues on the river bed.

Imagine you’re a great bull hippo,
Flumping down to take a dip-oh
In the greasy, grey Limpopo
With the girls in your seraglio.
You’ve had a hot and tiresome day
Chasing other males away.
You’ve gored them, left them sore and bleeding;
Now you are intent on breeding.

You’ve had your fill of the savannah.
You’re young, you’re fit, you’re top banana.
Why, every female hippolump
With big brown eyes and handsome rump
Is sure to swoon and yearn to be
The mother of your family.
Ah! Potty, with inviting lips;
And Mussy, with the sexy hips;

Heffy, with her nostrils flaring;
Lumpy, her whole midriff baring!
Yes, all will find you simply stunning.
Just one word and they’ll come running!
With thundering and galumphing stride,
You trundle to the riverside.
But nowhere, nowhere can you spy
Your eager hippopotamae.

And then to your acute dismay
You hear an amorata say,
Oh, dearie me, oh, what a shocker,
(Straight from Davey Jones’s locker,
Deep below the surface swirl:)
”He don’t know how to treat a girl.
I don’t expect no chocs or flowers,
Or sweet-talk that will last for hours.

“But when in heat and I’m his squeeze,
I wish he’d simply add a ‘please’.
“I quite agree.” (another voice)
“I wish we girls could have a choice.
He’s rude and gruff and rather rough,
And isn’t even good at stuff.
He’d like to think he’s quite a stud;
I’d much prefer to doze in mud.”

(A third voice) “Yes, he’s humourless and brusque
And far too quick to use a tusk.
I too agree with both of you.
My preference is for a zoo.
At least in zoos you laze away
With three square, well-cooked meals a day.
And if you have to mate, o.k?
You do it on a Saturday
With hoards of visitors in sight.
They keep a hippo male polite.”

You’re shocked, you’re shattered, angry too.
Was this gossip aimed at you?
Such comments make a chap’s skin crawl.
You never fancied them at all!
And lest you lose your pride and face,
You move off to another place,
Flumping down to take a dip-oh
In the greasy, grey Limpopo.

Tax avoidance is a tax on the rest of us

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Most high earners do the same thing Trump did with his taxes: they pay tax accountants huge salaries to manipulate tax code minutia and shrink their taxes to the smallest possible amount. In dodging their fair share of taxes, the ultra-rich shove the tax burden of running this country onto the working and middle classes, to the point where taxpayers end up footing the bill for rich folks’ evasion. This burden has increased over the past few decades, as taxes for the top brackets have declined but avoidance has become more popular among the elite. (Dr. Brooke Harrington, Patriotic Millionaires, 2 Oct 2020)

My comment: Yes, I know, I do talk about the disparity between rich and poor rather frequently, but I believe it to be, along with the growing global climate disaster, the most threatening thing that has happened to the United States. It is winked at by “yes-your-worship-can-I-lick-your-boots” politicians who know-tow to the rich in return for money and corrupted regulations. Who suffers? The rest of us. Epicurus would not be surprised, but would nonetheless speak out. So should we. The system has skewed the body politic.